Tuesdays with Corey: Final Four Storylines to Watch

"We've been there and we're ready
to take that next step," Denver midfielder Erik Adamson said of the
Pioneers' final four return. "We're looking to go all the way. It
should be really exciting." (Kevin P. Tucker)

The final four is set for Saturday — three months and 23
days after this season's first games were played at the start of
the NCAA Division I men's season way back on Feb. 1.

The winners play Memorial Day Monday at 1 p.m. All games will be
televised live on ESPN2 (and the championship game from the spider
cam feed will air on ESPNU), and we'll have coverage all weekend
long on LaxMagazine.com.

Here are a few things to keep an eye on in the lead-up to the
weekend and once the games get going:

Will Duke repeat? And what does it mean if they do?

It has been five seasons since a team has repeated as NCAA
Division I men's lacrosse champion. Syracuse was the last to do it
in 2008 and 2009. Duke won its first national title the next
season.

With two wins this weekend, in its eighth straight final four
appearance under coach John Danowski, Duke would take back-to-back
titles and its third in five seasons. The last team to win three in
five seasons? Syracuse in 2000, 2002 and 2004.

The Blue Devils would be the first team to accomplish the feat
since the tournament expanded to 16 teams for the 2003 season, and
would do it in the first year of the 18-team tournament, which did
play a factor this season with play-in team Bryant reaching the
quarterfinals.

Future Duke teams still have a bit more winning to do before the
program can be considered among the all-time elite, but with
another NCAA championship, the Blue Devils would have three,
trailing only Syracuse, Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Virginia and
North Carolina in that category, and tying Cornell.

Duke is this year's favorite, carrying with it the top seed in
the tournament and wins over two of the other three semifinalists.
Since back-to-back losses to Maryland and Loyola in early March,
the Blue Devils have won 11 of 12 games, averaging 17.08 goals per
game while allowing 9.66 in the same span.

Duke beat Denver 14-10 on Feb. 15 in Durham in both teams'
second game of the season.

"In the past, you've talked about their attack. This year,
everyone was talking about their midfield. [Sunday], they were
both, and that's a scary thought," Denver coach Bill Tierney said.
"But we have players, too, and we'll do our best to be up for the
challenge."

Can Denver, Notre Dame or Maryland break through?

While Duke is looking to make dynastic moves, Denver and Notre
Dame are seeking their first NCAA titles ever and Maryland has a
chance to win its first since 1975.

Of course, these Terps are much different than those Terps, but
many from this current group have been to championship weekend
before, as freshmen and sophomores on the teams that finished
runner-up in the 2011 and 2012 title games to Virginia and Loyola,
respectively.

Niko Amato started both of those games in goal for Maryland and
will look to close the book on his college career with a national
title, along with the rest of the Terps' senior class. Should it
come to a Duke-Maryland final, this Terps group has had success
against the Blue Devils during their time in College Park, holding
a 6-2 record against Duke, including a 10-6 win this season and
NCAA semifinal wins in 2011 and 2012.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame and Denver, two of lacrosse's western
outposts, can shift some attention away from the East Coast hotbeds
with a championship. If either wins, it will mark the third time in
five years that a program captures its first national title,
joining Duke in 2010 and Loyola in 2012.

Notre Dame has been knocking on the door — this is the
Irish's third championship weekend appearance in five seasons
— with their closest chance coming in 2010, when the Irish
were a C.J. Costabile overtime faceoff win away from playing for
the win in the title game against the Blue Devils.

This is the deepest team Tierney has had in his short, but
successful tenure as Denver's coach. The Pioneers are in their
third final four in four seasons.

"We've been there and we're ready to take that next step,"
Denver midfielder Erik Adamson said. "We're looking to go all the
way. It should be really exciting."

Denver has been most known for its offense — the
Canadian-American hybrid system that includes 30-plus different
looks, according to senior midfielder Jeremy Noble — but this
year the Pioneers' defense has emerged as another strength.
Tierney, purveyor of the slide-and-recover defense during his
Princeton days, is no stranger to teams that can shut you down.
Denver has allowed only 6.25 goals per game in its last four
outings and an average of 7.45 goals in the last 11.

Freshman Christian Burgdorf is the team's primary stopper,
taking over the role previously held by Minnesota native Carson
Cannon, a junior who had been the team's primary cover man his
first two years. The third close defenseman is senior Teddy
MacKenzie, a Bucknell transfer in his first year starting.

"They've just meshed and developed," Tierney said of the
defensive unit. "You start to see a lot of the same stuff over and
over again, so you do get used to that."

Who will emerge as stars of championship weekend?

With Josh Dionne out of the
lineup, Duke moved second midfielder Kyle Keenan to attack. The
Blue Devils run five midfielders in the second half against Johns
Hopkins. How they approach championship weekend remains to be
seen. (Kevin P. Tucker)

On the sport's biggest stage, new stars always emerge to the
wider audience. Duke's Brendan Fowler last season, Loyola's Eric
Lusby the season before that and to a certain extent, with
Virginia's win in 2011, Steele Stanwick strengthened his name, and
case for the Tewaaraton Award, which he won over Cornell's Rob
Pannell.

Who will it be this year? There are several possibilities.

Duke sophomore midfielder Myles Jones has made a quantum leap
this year, racking up 57 points on 33 goals and 24 assists. He had
21 points last season.

Jones is really more of a junior, having spent a prep year at
Salisbury School (Conn.), where the former three-sport star (also
basketball and football) at Walt Whitman (N.Y.) rediscovered a love
for basketball and waffled between pursing basketball at the next
level or remaining committed to Duke lacrosse. He and Deemer Class,
who has 60 points, have filled gaps in the midfield left open at
the end of last season.

"I was forced to grow and play like a senior," Jones said of
stepping into a starting role after the graduation of three key
midfielders from the title team. "Being comfortable and being
confident is what makes me successful. The guys around me playing
well eases the nerves. I get nervous before games."

How can you be more clutch than Notre Dame sophomore attackman
Matt Kavanagh? His game-winner in overtime ended Albany's dream
season, and not only did he score the game's final goal, but
Kavanagh also showed his trademark hustle plays and signs of his
hockey background.

He's come up big in big games before, already with MVP honors of
this year's ACC tournament and, before he even arrived at Notre
Dame, MVP of the Federation of International Lacrosse (FIL)
under-19 tournament playing for Team USA in Finland. Like Jones,
Kavanagh took a post-graduate year, at Hotchkiss School (Conn.)
after his high school career at Chaminade (N.Y.).

No matter what happens on championship weekend, the future for
Denver is bright on both ends of the field with freshmen
attackman/midfielder Zack Miller and Burgdorf, who will likely draw
Duke senior attackman Jordan Wolf in a key matchup. The final four
could be their coming out party.

Don't forget the only Tewaaraton Award finalist left standing in
Wolf, and Maryland fifth-year senior attackman Mike Chanenchuk, or
the baby Terps on offense, led by Matt Rambo and Connor Cannizzaro,
who will get their first taste of championship weekend. Chanenchuk
leads the offense in goals (35) and assists (22).

And, as always, the faceoff specialists and goalies from every
team can swing momentum. More on that...

Goalies and faceoff specialists, oh my...

Of any of the goalies in the final four, Amato is the most
entrenched in his starting, full-game role and he has the best save
percentage (56.6).

On the rest: Notre Dame's Conor Kelly (48.0) was out of the
starting lineup earlier in the year but has started the last six
games; Denver uses a two-goalie system with Ryan LaPlante (57.9)
starting and Jamie Faus (54.7) relieving him in the second half;
and Duke's Luke Aaron (51.8) took over the starting role from
incumbent Kyle Turri (45.3) after Duke played Denver earlier in the
year, but Aaron has been pulled in favor of Turri at times this
year, notably in the March loss to Loyola and again Sunday against
Johns Hopkins. Turri, the goalie throughout Duke's national title
season last year, wasn't tested much Sunday, with the Blue Jays
taking only two shots on goal against him.

"We have several competent goalies," Danowski said Sunday. "The
best one may be a redshirt freshman. Why not [change them up]? If
Luke is not feeling it or it's just not happening for him... I
think you saw Kyle pick up a ground ball and he clears the ball,
[he] does a great job out of the goal."

The pure stats on the faceoff specialists: Maryland's Charlie
Raffa (67.8), Duke's Brendan Fowler (59.5), Notre Dame's Liam
O'Connor (59.9) and Denver's Chris Hampton (51.9). Of them all, Raffa and Fowler are the most familiar with each
other and could meet in the final. They are friends, hanging
out at home on Long Island in the summer. They faced off against
each other in high school, with Raffa's St. Anthony's (N.Y.) team
annually competing with Fowler's Chaminade (N.Y.) team in the Long
Island Catholic league rivalry. Both got to know each other better
through faceoff sessions with Long Island-based faceoff instructor
Matt Schomburg, and working camps together.

Quick turnarounds

Three of the final four teams have played three games in two
days this season at least once this season. Maryland is the only
team not to, since the Terps lost to Notre Dame in the ACC
tournament semifinals. Their closest span between games was three
when they played Villanova on March 14 and Michigan on March
18.

Duke played two games in three days twice, once in February and
again in March.

Denver played on back-to-back days in February and faced a tough
two-game stretch in three days in March: in California against
Notre Dame and at home against Penn State, both wins. They did the
same to win the Big East tournament.

Notre Dame won the ACC tournament, playing twice in 72 hours
against Maryland and Syracuse.

Duke may have to manage the turnaround the most from a personnel
standpoint. The Blue Devils will have a different look with Josh
Dionne (leg) all but officially out of the lineup. Kyle Keenan
started in Dionne's place on attack in the second half of the Blue
Devils' win over Johns Hopkins on Sunday in the quarterfinals after
Dionne was knocked out of hte game. Keenan had been running on the
second midfield. Instead of putting someone in his place, Danowski
and company elected to run just five midfielders in the second
half. In a potential two games in three days scenario, a team needs
depth.

Danowski said Tuesday morning that junior midfielder Tanner
Scott and sophomore John Shaffer would practice with the second
midfield, but if they play on Saturday will be a game-time decision
and depend on the pace of the game. Danowski also cited expected
temperatures in the 70s as potentially helping things.

As for Dionne, he said Sunday he was looking forward to what
could be considered a week-long coaching internship with the Duke
staff. He had an MRI on Monday night. On the hit that knocked him
from the game Sunday just before halftime, he said he didn't see it
coming: "I was staring at that top corner... ready to yank it."